NUIG Students Must Sign Covid Code Or Face Penalties

NUIG students must sign and observe COVID-19 code for the academic year or face sanctions if the code is breached.

All students and staff must sign and adhere to a new safety code on public health guidelines and responsible behaviour.

The community promise - formally known as “cúram dá chéíle” - will be mandatory for all students to sign up to for the academic year.

We are asking our university community to make a commitment to our community - Cúram dá Chéile, our community promise, to consider others, to respect everyone in the university and the wider community. #cúramdáchéile https://t.co/Pe0fPVF4i5

— NUI Galway (@nuigalway) August 21, 2020

NUIG president Ciarán Ó hÓgartaigh said the university needs a deepened sense of maturity and responsibility for the collective good.

“We are asking each student to sign up to be part of our university community, to behave appropriately, to consider others, to follow our advice and public health guidelines, to act responsibly and to respect everyone in the university and the wider community.

“This commitment asks students to respond in an open, positive, and respectful way if their actions are challenged and to avoid scenarios and environments that run counter to these principles.

“But it is the basis for a collective good. It has the power to be a guiding light - for the university, as more than an academic institution, to show solidarity with the wider community and reduce the spread of Covid-19. What keeps us apart can be the very thing that brings us together.”

Furthermore, NUIG is also establishing an expert group to help support behaviour change among the student body and how to develop and promote alternative activities for students in a post-COVID landscape.

Professor Michelle Millar, Dean of Students at NUI Galway, said students were "rightly challenging us about what they can do, how they can gather safely, how they can socialise. We can't simply tell them what not to do."